6 April 2009 - Sea of Sand - Part 2

[ryos]

As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated!

[Renoard]

Ryos I'd like for you to go ahead and forward part one.  Thanks for the early submission, it'll help me ease in. ;P


I get the sense that these are colonists or the descendants of colonists. If that's not where you are going then I apologize for being thick.  I find that I do care about Selendy, and I cared about Toma (till you murdered him ).  Hafona a little less so, but I do want to know more.  I want to know more about their faith, their history and their world.  I think you are seeding the revelations nicely so that we aren't being lectured and neither are the characters.  It's a crisp and enjoyable read.

I think you are handling technology well.  If my understanding of the origins of these people is correct then it makes sense that they would have a mix of cottage industry and technology that is dependent on their resources and may have evolved over time.  Or not, we're still at the discovery stage so the possibilities are open enough that my mind is going in different directions to sort the pieces.

I particularly like the Oilfish Bulbs idea. Everyone lives at in a city big enough to have slums, the land is denuded and near the sea so no wood and they use sea life for fuel.  I wonder what the boat (catamaran?) is made from though.


On the down side:

The early part of this passage was a little difficult.  If I had encountered this in a setting where I wasn't required to read, I would have stopped before I got any further and would have missed out on the story.  This might not be true if I'd started from part 1 and being a new reader I account for that.  What I had difficulty with was the use of "indecisve man" juxtaposed with the "decisive man".  It may be a pet peeve but it felt a little stilted to have the men described by such childish sorts of labels, but I haven't read part one yet and that might be covered in the characterization of Selendy.

Given the patchy technology and the lack of resources, if there is not land for wood and everyone lives at sea, where does a flower like cotton grow?

I'm assuming from posts about part one that the priestess who sent them upriver gave Selendy a knife and that she used it to cut Hafona free.

The realization punched through her panic and shattered it like ice. She took a deep, calming breath.

I don't know how to say this and not be sexist: This reaction didn't ring true for me.  It wasn't very feminine to have her panic shatter from something as simple as logic, after he'd had to chase her down and tackle her.  Alternatively, I could see her submitting in order to try and placate him, or resisting hystercally.

It seems to me that she would have felt the need to dance around the topic of her own murder.  If she is really conflicted it seems odd she'd let a stranger in too deeply.  Seems she might have tried to get him to tell her what she wanted without revealing much.

Above all thanks for sharing your work.  I look forward to part 3.

[ryos]

Thanks for the comments!

The realization punched through her panic and shattered it like ice. She took a deep, calming breath.

I don't know how to say this and not be sexist: This reaction didn't ring true for me.  It wasn't very feminine to have her panic shatter from something as simple as logic, after he'd had to chase her down and tackle her.  Alternatively, I could see her submitting in order to try and placate him, or resisting hystercally.

Would the women in the audience care to confirm or deny?

[RavenstarRHJF]

It's... unlikely.  I have known women who reason primarily logically instead of emotionally, but usually they also have some sort of training in that, i.e. debate, and etc.  Logic could reach her, and could help her to calm down, but not that quickly, and she would likely have to nerve herself to follow Hafona back to camp.

Critique will follow later, when my mind has started working again.

[wcarter4]

Well, I'm liking the way this story is shaping up so far but I have just a couple of minor gripes.

First the use of the word desert may not be appropriate if there really is water there. It's just an incongruity that you might want to consider changing. Maybe call it something else while keeping its current features.

Second, several things feel rushed such as the amount of time it took for Toma to turn on the others or how long it took Selendy to calm down as mentioned before. I know this story is supposed to be relatively short overall, but you might want to give a few more transition scenes. These people are basically travelling to their deaths as far as they know, let their doom wear on their minds and bodies a bit before they break. Letting them snap too quickly is too merciful. Conflict is largely anticipation.

I can't wait to read part three.

[Frog]

Thoughts while Reading:
My thought on chapter's beginning is that you hook, then immediately reorientate. I thought you did good on the first point, but you could do better about the second. I'm also not too fond of the 'nicknames.'

Dialogue here is very good.

You know, physically, you never discribe Toma or Hafona or even Selendy. I'd like to know what your people look and dress like.

According to your explanation (that a concentration of Tefuna in an inland sea could have life) I would expect that some of the seeds by the river would take root if the river belongs to Tefuna.

I don't know why, but for some reason I am still having trouble picturing the layout of your world... but I suppose if this was a book you'd be able to have a map or something (like all good fantasies  ) and it would be less of an issue.

They were given packs w/ supplies?

I think you could work on smoothing out these transitions; they feel a little abrupt.

I am a bit confused by some of Hafona's knowledge. At first I thought the other priest was working alone in asking them to search for life, but Hafona makes it seem like they do this all the time, so which is it?

Toma and Hafona's fight and Toma's death seemed too abrupt. I mean, I could see it coming and you foreshadowed it well, but I would have expected a few more fights to break out before the final climax.

Umm... Selendy seemed to have calmed down FAR too quickly. I half expected her to say she was calm, so Hafona would let her up, then take off running again. 

Overall impression:
My biggest compliant is that it moves a bit too fast for my liking. I want more details and I think you could work on smoothing out transitions and adding suspense by delaying some climatic moments. But that is my only compliant. I shall now sing your praises. I REALLY want to know about this Usurper. I what to know if they will find life at the end of this river. Your characters interest and amuse me. If you could smooth it out a little, I honestly think you have a really good story here that I could enjoy immensely. Great work!

The woman thing... I am a woman so I will answer and tell you that I did find Selendy's transition too abrupt to be believable, but I probably would think that about any gendered character going from hysterical to completely calm in a matter of seconds.

[Renoard]

To clarify, Frog is right that it's not usually gender specific, but I could have bought it if Selendy were male and reacted with the shock of cold anger, the third leg of fight or flight that males a biologically programmed for.  Guess you could call it fight flight or arrogate? Hah! Not that I meant to stir a gender debate in the middle of ry's critique thread.

[ryos]

This is really good stuff. Thanks guys!

I already know how I'm going to fix the whole "Selendy calms down too quickly" issue.

As for describing the characters - I'm not sure where I'd stick that. Selendy especially, since she's the viewpoint character, and I can't see her describing herself. This is my inexperience as a writer speaking - I'm sure I'll think of something.

However, it'll probably be in a rewrite if at all, so here's a bit of description for you:

I picture the people in this world looking like Polynesians. Hafona is six feet tall, slightly robust, with a round face and short-cropped black hair. Toma is slim, 5'6" tall, and bald. Selendy is about 5'9", a little chubby, and has shoulder-length black hair.

As for their dress, I'm sort of revising that in my head based on Renoard's suggestion that perhaps cotton should not be available, which I agree with. I'll probably draw inspiration from traditional Polynesian dress, since they didn't have cotton either.

[Bookstore Guy]

just a quick comment:

I haven't read this story, but you mentioned that it is a short story? Since I'm going to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the genre of this story is either SF or F, you should keep the following things in mind - which are all according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

1000 words or less = short short fiction or flash fiction
1000 - 7500 = short story
7500 - 17500 = novelette
17500 - 40000 = novella
40000+ = generally a novel

I only really bring this up because I am about to send off my short story to a few places, and most places want it below that 7500 mark - the local Short Story Guy, Eric James Stone, sent me a huge list of places. Some have a strict 4000 word cap, and others a 5000 word cap.

Just keep all that in mind.

[ryos]

The way things are looking, I'll probably be within 1000 words of my original 10K estimate. I guess it's a novelette, then. I hear those are harder to sell for new authors than shorts, but I doubt this particular story will squeeze down to 7500 words. I mean, shoot, it's already sitting at 7K, with a good 3K left to go before the end.

I won't be too awful disappointed if this piece doesn't sell. It is, after all, a first attempt. The kind and unexpected encouragement you guys have been giving me is helping me hope it might, but I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up too high.

[Bookstore Guy]

when you finish up, take a good look at what you have. you may be able to cut things out and explain chunks in a paragraph. my personal opinion is that you should always want to sell your work. i recommend going to some of the big magazines' websites and seeing what word-count requests are. some were at 8K. also, Writers of the Future is a bit different, and they go up to 17K. Orson Scott Card's site is accepting for under 10K.

i hope i didn't sound discouraging, that wasn't my intent. i just wanted you to keep certain word counts in mind. write til you are done, regardless of word-count, and then revise (whether up in count, or down) and see if you can sell it anywhere.

just to give you an idea, my story is sitting at 5300 words. now, there are plenty of places that would take that count, but there is one place that says 4K is the absolute highest. it forced me to re-evaluate my content. there is a 1200 word segment that could prolly be summarized in a short paragraph. see what I mean? just evaluate it after you finish.

[Flo_the_G]

I tend to agree that some parts seemed a tad rushed, and I share Frog's confusion as to the frequency of these expeditions (you did say it was only the second one, I think). I also thought that, especially during the first (verbal) confrontation between Toma and the priest, both of them seemed somewhat cliché'd, it seemed a bit as though it were a scene from some mass-produced action flick. I felt that detracted from the seriousness of the situation.

When Selendy tells the priest about the desert and all that, it basically screams infodump, even though the priest then tells her how things really stand. If you turned that around (i.e. have the priest ask her instead of having her saying "As you very well know, Bob...") that probably wouldn't be as conspicuous.

But never mind all that. The story is interesting, and I want to emphasise especially that you really managed to give me a sense of a very real world, with heaps of backstory that shine through here and there - not because you want the reader to know these things, but because they're an integral part of your world. Not this might just be a quirk of mine, but at this point I find the prospect of learning more about the setting to be at least equally as interesting as that of learning what happens next.

[Frog]

As for describing the characters - I'm not sure where I'd stick that. Selendy especially, since she's the viewpoint character, and I can't see her describing herself. This is my inexperience as a writer speaking - I'm sure I'll think of something.

Thanks for the descriptions. If you ever try to get them in there (I still vote yes, because I like things to be a bit longer/fuller, but I can see it being a problem if you're set on a certain length) my thought would be that you could spread out the details with action so it flows, without ever stopping the narrative to give the full discription. Ex. When Hafona tackles Selendy, might be a good place to point out a few of the differences in their body types. Just my two cents.

[Renoard]

I'm sitting here reading over the comments we've all made.  It's ironic that you are worrying about being too long for a short story, while we're calling for more text.  I really think sprinkling the personal description of Selendy in part one and describing the men in part 2 would be helpful.  If your present outline really calls for 10K then maybe it's too much story for this format and you would do better reserving this plot for a novel.

That said, let's see where it goes, finish first then worry about issues like is it too long for a publication or venue.  So far those of us who are reading want more give it up dude! 

[Bookstore Guy]

no, no, no. please don't shorten your story prematurely. that's not what I was saying. like I said, finish up the story, and then worry about whether you need to lengthen it or shorten it. i just wanted people to understand where the flexible boundaries were. once the story is finished, see where you think you could submit it. then adjust (if needed) accordingly.